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This is a continuation of my blogging here at WdC |
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This will be a blog for my writing, maybe with (too much) personal thrown in. I am hoping it will be a little more interactive, with me answering questions, helping out and whatnot. It follows on from the old one, which is now full. An index of topics from old and new can be found here: "Writing Blog No.2 Index"  Feel free to comment and interact. And to suggest topics! |
| ONE HUNDRED! So, I made a small announcement on the Newsfeed, but I wanted to go into it in a little more depth. I recently saw my one hundredth short story traditionally published, in Tales From The Crosstimbers, Winter 2025 edition. I have signed contracts for three more stories, so it does not end here, but one hundred is what I want to focus on. So⌠one hundred. Itâs just a number, but humans like patterns and numbers have meaning. I sold my first short story, that I can officially recognise (I never saw the 1988 one in print), in 2002-ish. So, thatâs 23 years. I didnât sell from 2015 to 2017 because of personal issues. But, as an average, itâs a little over 4 stories a year; taking out those 3 years, itâs 5 stories a year. I have been told that is reasonably good. The length ran from a heap of drabbles (100 words) to just under 10k words. Now, after having my first book published, I stopped setting writing goals for myself. I just write. Even NaNoWriMo didnât help; in 2024 I wrote over 160k words in the month. A novel, a novella, a film script, 2 short stories and 2 poems in 30 days. Goals didnât mean a lot. But in the middle of 2024, I sold 5 short stories in a month or so. My statistics on Excel (yes, Excel; donât judge) informed me that that would break me into a hundred by 2027 at my then current rate of sales. Then 13 OâClock Press died, and 3 of those stories were subsequently not going to be published. 100 was a nice goal, but seemed years away. BUT! 2024 saw my sales increase, and come the start of 2025 and I was suddenly only 6 or 7 stories away from the mark. I had a goal. I started submitting like crazy. I wanted to reach this goal in 2026. But sales came⌠and suddenly, here I am, a month shy of 2026 and I have 100 short stories traditionally published, with contracts signed for three more⌠Why do I keep saying traditionally published? To be traditionally published, someone has to accept your story. You have to please an editor, a publisher and a slush pile reader. Heaps of people have probably self-published hundreds of short stories; my archives have over 1000 unpublished short stories, so I could easily have hundreds (plural) out there. But, as I have said before, if it isnât good enough for a publisher, itâs not good enough for the public. In. My. Opinion. I think that is a distinction. Literally anyone can self-publish if they have the money. Not just anyone can be trad published. Just sayinâ⌠but regular readers know this about me. Anywho, if you go to
you can get a copy of the magazine and see my rather weird comedy-scifi tale, my 100th trad published story: âBig Black Thing Of Doomâ. I feel like I might have finally achieved something as a writer⌠|
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| Negative Feedback So⌠getting negative feedback. What do we do? This is NOT negative reviews. That is a different kettle of fish I dealt with here: "20250421 Reposting Another Old Blog - Negative Reviews" .No. This is when someone you trust â a beta reader, a family member, a good friend â reads your work at your request and then feels compelled to be honest and lets you know they did not like it. This is not bad, by the way. Getting honest feedback is important to our growth as writers. But when you get that first bit of honesty from someone you trust, it can be a bitter pill to swallow. All your friends say youâre the bestest evahhh⌠how dare this person say thereâs âissuesâ? What I say to that is, wait until you get told by a en editor from a publishing firm not to ever submit to them again, or that going back to school could be beneficial. (And, yes, I have received that feedbackâŚ) So, what can you do? 1) Believe them. The chances are they are not just being negative for the sake of being negative. You canât say that about reviewers, but those you have asked to read it are just being honest. And if they see something, then other readers will as well. So, yes, believe what they are saying. 2) Ask them for details Ask them why it didnât resonate, why it didnât work. If youâre lucky, theyâll tell you anyway, but you might have to push them, especially if they are really embarrassed or think theyâve upset you. Good friends or first-time beta readers (my daughter excepted) will be nervous being negative to someone they like. 3) Make changes Donât brood over the âfactâ your âbabyâ is useless. Youâve got the feedback, now utilise it and make the changes. If that means doing another draft, then do another draft! But take the feedback on board, make changes⌠and try again. 4) Thank them This is very important, especially if you donât feel like it. Make them feel like they didnât waste their time and they could well read for you again. I personally use chocolate bribery. Thatâs not a lot, I know, but there is not a real lot you can do. It is honestly good for you to get that sort of feedback. Be thankful you have an honest reader and donât get stuck in Idol Syndrome ("20240131 #2 Criticism & The Writer (Idol Syndrome)" ). |
| Novel #31 Voyage Home is a young adult fantasy story that clocks in at about 70k words. In it, a young man and his girlfriend are transported to a world created and ruled by a witch. But because the young man has wounded her, her sister now has the opportunity to destroy the world, and it is up to him to save it. However, he wants to find the girlfriend first. He hooks up with a couple of part-elves, and eventually the battle is joined. It was the proposed first part of a trilogy. Voyage North was to be next, with a new, internal antagonist, and Voyage Out was to be last, culminating in a battle in our world. Now, this story⌠It has had the most amazing, long gestation of anything I have ever written. It was started in 1987, even before I started Into The Crystal. A lot of the elements that later appeared in Into The Crystal were started here â teenagers thrust into a fantasy world, fighting evil, that sort of thing. But this one was a meandering nothing and so when âŚCrystal took off, it was rejected at about 3k words. A few years later I revisited it and started to flesh out especially the main character a bit more, but like so many of my male characters, he was a whiny emo-lite and I just didnât like him. I created over-complicated situations and, again, stopped. I was writing myself into a corner. I finished my first uni degree in the early 1990s and started working with teenagers, and had a slightly better grasp of what normal teenagers wanted (having worked out I was probably not ânormalâ) and decided that this story would be perfect as a story for teenagers. So I rewrote chunks of it, discarded bigger chunks and tried again. But I still fell into the same hole of making my world not make sense. Fast forward a decade and I was at uni again, doing my second degree (education). One of the subjects was childrenâs literature, and so out this came again, and yet again I tried to work it. By now Harry Potter books were the big sellers and I tried to fit into that world of modified and borrowed mythologies, but it just didnât feel right. The story had blown out to around 30k words and I was reluctant to let so much work go away, but I did. Then, in about 2007, after a few years in the classroom, I pulled it out again and rejected a lot of the changes, reducing it by about 10k words and tried again. I worked out the ending and completely changed the bad guys/monsters. It was going okay, but other stories got in the way and distracted me, and so it fell by the wayside yet again. So now we reach February of 2013. I found an online entry for a competition looking for young adult fiction that I had previously entered (and been short-listed for). I wanted to try again, but none of my completed young adult stories were young enough, and they had increased the minimum word length to 42k (max 80k). So I went through the incomplete stories and found this. I drew a map of the world! That was it, the spark that set me off. Always draw a map, people! Then came TAFE and the novel I decided to write for that, so for another few weeks it was again on the back-burner. Writing that so quickly had my brain wanting to write more. But finally I reached it. After 26 years I worked out what to do with this story. I think the only part I have kept is the opening 2 paragraphs, the names and the basic set-up. Everything else has changed completely. I rewrote everything from chapter 6 on after seriously modifying chapters 1 to 5. I changed the bad guys and monsters again. I upped the blood. I increased the feelings of being in the wrong place in the main character. I drew a more detailed map of my new world. I decided that if the world had not had a war in centuries they would not know how to wage one, so even someone with the limited experience of the main character would be a military genius in that situation. In short, I finally worked out how to make everything make sense, as much as anything can make sense in a fantasy world populated by elves, dwarves and anthropomorphic man-beasts. One thing I added in the final draft was that the kid from our world clearly has no idea how to use a sword, so the sword takes him over, does the fighting for him, puts him in that mind-set⌠but because he has connected with it, the negative is he gets a headache when he is too far ay from the weapon. Little things like that I would not have done in 1987 when I began this story. We learn as we get older. I re-read it over the past few days and â you know something? â itâs actually not horrendous or anything. Sure, itâs still not brilliant, but nothing a good edit couldnât fix once the storyâs gone past a beta reader. It was never entered in the competition, by the way. So that was a long and strange birth for this story. Itâs a reason why I never throw any of my writing stuff away â you never know when it will become something worth working on. Still, 26 years. Thatâs a long time. Excerpt: (part of a fight scene from ch 27) I saw it coming and stepped out of the way as it landed, its claws striking me in the chest. I looked down at my torn shirt and the blood flowing from the gashes, and then back at the creature. It grinned at me and I punched as hard as I could, somehow catching it in the eye. It stumbled back a few steps, then rushed me. I had no idea what to do, so I jumped to meet it in mid-rush, but it seemed to anticipate my move and slid to the side. I turned to face it, but it was already waiting and its fist slammed into the side of my head. I felt the eye swell immediately. I staggered back and it punched me again, then opened its mouth wide. I kicked it between the legs as hard as I could, but all it did was shut its mouth and stare at me, then shake its head. I somehow dodged its own kick, but did not see the tail coming, which struck me in the stomach and doubled me over. The animal hooked my head under its arm and used its other claw to lift me into the air, then drop me across the nearest branch of the tree. All the air was knocked out of me and I sort of rolled off to land heavily on my back on the ground. Hyla screamed again, but her voice and the buzzing sound in my head had taken a back seat to the blood thumping through my brain. One of the clawed hands picked me up by the hair and then both hands grabbed me around the neck. I was hefted off the ground and swung in a semi-circle. The hands let go of me and I felt like I hung in mid-air for a moment before I landed on my stomach once again, this time flat on the ground. Breathing became a little more difficult and I had trouble feeling my legs. Look, itâs not a masterpiece, but I think this longer discussion of my work shows that time is irrelevant when it comes to writing. I do need to go through it again, then probably give it to my daughter to beta read, then see how I go if I decide to sell it. One thing I did notice was a complete lack of mobile phones; I am going to have to include them somehow if I am going to aim it for a modern audience. Despite 26 years of rewrites, it is still set in 1987! Writing is weird. |
| Writing Historical Fiction â Basics AbbyAG asked about how to write historical fiction because they like reading it. As such, I reached out to a friend who does just that. Her first book I was fortunate enough to be a beta reader for, set in the Australian Gold Rush. As such, she suggested for people just beginning to write in the genre the following as a nice way to cut your teeth: 1) Choose the historical period. Of course, this is logical, but it must be the first thing you do. It always works better if it is one you really like already and have some knowledge of. To write historical fiction, you need to be invested, because readers will be invested. They will know if you mixed up Georgian with Victorian England. So pick one period and make sure it is one you can mentally inhabit for a long time and be happy there. 2) Research some of the important events of the period. This is where you look at the big events that happened. These are easy enough to find, especially looking at popular periods. But you need to be aware of how the events are linked. For example, the creation of the English Doomsday Book comes from the victory of William in 1066, which came from Harald having already faced his brother and Vikings before facing William, which came from Harald giving his brother up to maintain peace⌠All of this is going to inform your story and the time period you choose! 3) Research the minutiae This is when you look at the things that made that period what it was, and different to our own world. This is where historical fiction writers often lose themselves; they love the research aspect of looking at the small details of everything about their time period. And this affection shows through in their work. My friend does warn that researching a period must also involve food and the words they used. That is where most historical fiction falls down. People are great at researching events, places, clothing, weapons, jobs, etc., but those two aspects become anachronistic in too many works. The further back you go, the more you need to make sure the words mean what you think they mean. Some words today have a different meaning even compared to Medieval times! Then you can go in two ways... 3a) Write about a family/ person greatly affected by one of these events This is taking someone from the lower or middle classes and how the event you have decided to focus on affects them. You invent your characters whole-cloth and set them into your realistic time period. or 3b) Choose a famous person involved in a historical event and invent a character who is in close proximity and helps them out. This will involve even more research because you will need to get the historical character as close to how the records indicate they were as possible, and their actions and reactions will have to match them, but it is also putting your character in the heart of a great event, so engaging your reader more. My friend recommends that you start with a short story or two with the same character. This will get you used to writing in the period without worrying about filling out a whole novel. It will help get your research chops down, and give you a chance to focus on one or two aspects first. She says you can then take one of these shorts and use it to extend if you want to write a longer work, because you are already in that character/ event. The short story can even become a prologue or the like. Of course, she points out, this is her suggestion, and a longer work, once you have incorporating the research stuff into a story down, can be brand new. I hope that helps someone. |
| Tell, Donât Show Now, youâve probably read that and thought, Well, Stevenâs lost it. Surely itâs the other way around! Well, no. Not all the time. This is when not to use show, but to instead rely on tell. 1) A short story Short stories can be any length under a specific word count (under 12,500 words is the definition I tend to use), and that is great. But if you have a market for a short story, the chances are it is going to be much more limiting. So, the markets I tend to submit to have a maximum word count of 5k-6k words., some as low as 4k. Sometimes, to not exceed the word count and to make a story therefore sellable, we will need to tell some of the events and not show them. 2)A recount You have character A spend an entire chapter watching the enemy army, noting what they are doing. They return to the camp and character B asks them what they saw. A quick recount is all that is needed, not the complete show of everything A said. It is not only boring, but a repeat of what we, the readers, have already experienced. 3) A jump Character C is woken by a strange noise, and we are shown how they feel about this. But we then want to show that the rest of the morning is fine until an event at lunch in the work staff-room. Telling us the details of the day that show the mundane without getting into the emotional nitty-gritty is perfectly fine. It does not affect the story, and allows us to get to the next interesting point smoother and without drawing things out. 4) A repetition avoidance When we, the writer, know that what we are about to describe and show is very close to something we have already written because of similar events, emotions, etc., then it is fine to tell us that it is a repeat and to not go over old ground. 5) A means of hiding We do not want one of our characters to be known to the reader. Their motivations, thoughts, feelings, etc., are supposed to be hidden from the reader because we want them to be completely unknown. The mysterious entity, the inhuman entity, a being that is too different from humans to make sense; or we just want them to be in the shadows. So, when it comes to their actions, we just tell the reader what they do and let the reader wonder⌠So, there we are â five times when telling can be better than showing. Now, in most cases you are definitely going to want to show, not tell. But sometimes⌠sometimes rules are made to be broken. |
| Positive Info-Dumping At times, I have said that we should avoid info-dumps. It can be boring to a reader, and can slow the narrative flow to a crawl. But sometimes an info-dump is necessary because otherwise your reader will become lost. So, in these cases, we need to info-dump. But when? And how? 1) We need a receiver The info-dump generally cannot just be there in the text. It works better if someone is telling another character things they donât know, or if a character is remembering all the information. For example, theyâve reached a town, and theyâre trying to remember everything about it. Or an old priest is explaining the world to a young acolyte in terms of their religion. Or a soldier is warning the adventurers about what lies ahead. 2) We need relevance The information we are getting needs to be vital to the story. Why info-dump the history of the mouse-gods of Owl Mountain if it is only in passing? But if they are going to steal the Ruby of the Rat Ruler from the mouse-gods of Owl Mountain, then that information becomes vital. The town the character is remembering is now the scene for all the action. The acolyte did not realise how complex the religion was and is now doubting their choice of vocation. The adventurers think the soldierâs story means there is fame to be had. 3) We donât necessarily need everything The things that are important should be there, but leaving some things to be discovered can add little plot twists, or maybe the information is not entirely correct through misunderstanding, or anything else. Adding that hint of doubt can make the reader more invested. So the character forgets that the tavern is beside a barracks, and the soldiers they are trying to avoid drink there all the time. Or the acolyte discovers that the image of the gods of their religion is wrong when they encounter an avatar. Or the adventurers discover when the soldier said ten living trees, he meant a hundred. 4) Limit how many we get We do not need an info-dump about each and every thing the characters encounter. Just where having that information will make the reader follow along much easier. How long should an info-dump be? There is no answer to this. If you find it too long, then it is too long. If your beta reader says it dragged, then it is too long. But, then again, if your beta reader says they needed more to understand it, then extend it. So, yes, info-dumps can be tedious and skippable. But if used correctly, they can actually enhance a piece of writing. Just donât do one every three pages. |
| Novel #30 Back to the novels! In 2012-2013, having given up work as a teacher to be a stay-at-home dad, I studied a Diploma of Professional Writing at TAFE (sort of Australiaâs version of vocational college). When I finished the course, well⌠letâs just say it added another piece of paper to my resume. Anywho, the final subject I had was what is called a ânegotiated projectâ, where the student gets to pick what they want to do, within some very strict parameters. Minimum word count, had to be a complete piece, things like that. I decided to write a novel. They said I could not do it in the 20-week semester. I said I could. They agreed, thinking Iâd fail, and have to redo the subject, and so pay them more money. Three weeks later, it was done. It was a return to the horror-thriller genre I keep on going back to, and it is not the most brilliant piece of work. But 22 days to write it. My lecturer and tutor â who had been keeping tabs by me doing a document share at the end of each day â had never seen anything like it and I got a high distinction at full marks. Corporal Works Without Mercy is a 60,000 word novel that flowed out once it started. Basically, the story involves a group of teenagers who try a Satanic ritual as something to do, it seems to go wrong, and they go home. Seven years later, it comes back to haunt them (quite literally). Using the seven Corporal Works of Mercy of Catholic belief, a demon is killing or destroying the lives of these people. Some nice gore, a couple of decent characters, and a surprisingly upbeat ending, a lot of religious iconography. But it is not a wonderful piece. The feedback was minimal from the TAFE people â I donât think they had been ready for someone to just produce something like this so quickly. I took their feedback on board, made a few changes and then gave it to my then-beta reader. She hated it. Iâd forgotten she was Catholic. So I gave it to someone else, made a few more changes, and thought it might be ready I have submitted it a few times, but with no success. Obviously. One publisher recommended I really up the gore, but to me it does not feel like that would fit the story. And then, out of the blue, it was accepted by Little Demon Books after the success of Patch Of Green, but the company went bust before it could be published ⌠owing me money! Okay, so hereâs the excerpt. And it was a little challenging to find a decent bit. Not for the first time⌠Excerpt: CHAPTER 11 Laura sat on one of the hard plastic seats in the hospital cafeteria, drinking a foam cup of horrid, lukewarm coffee, trying very hard not to think about the reason she was in this place tonight. She looked up as the chair on the opposite of the small table was scraped across the hard floor. Mrs Greene, Joelâs mother, sat down with her own cup, but said nothing. âHow is he?â Laura asked quietly. âNot too good,â she said, barely controlling her emotions. âHeâs conscious now, butâŚâ She was struggling. âOne of his hands is pretty badly burnt, and heâs got broken ribs. They think he might have damage to his lungs as well. Heâs got a few stitches in his head, bruises everywhere. He looksâŚâ She started to cry. âNo,â Laura said again, âhow is he?â She shook her head. âHe wonât talk. When he found out that Justine didnât⌠didnât⌠make it⌠didnât⌠he, well, heâŚâ The tears really flowed down her cheeks now. âHe doesnât want any visitors. Not me, not his dad, no-one. Itâs like this has killed him inside.â Laura did not know what to say. Just one more thing to add to everything else. She looked up, past the crying woman sitting in front of her at the glass wall of the cafeteria and the people wandering past. No-one smiled. It was just a conveyor belt of depression. A place of pain and anger and sadness. Her eyes widened. The figure that strode past was one she knew â the long sheet of black hair, lithe figure, black clothing. Eve was here as well? Her chest felt like a hand grasped her heart and squeezed it tight. She had to do something. But what? So, while I am down on it, the fact LDB did like it and wanted it to be a follow-up novel tells me there must be something there beyond me being so down on it. So, this might be another one that needs a new beta reader and then should be sent out into the wide blue yonder of cyberspace to see if it can get another life. You never know. |
| Hemingwayâs Iceberg Now, I have brought this up before, but someone asked me about it recently, and so I thought Iâd do a whole post about this: Hemingwayâs Iceberg on Info-dumping! So, basically, Hemingway reckoned you should do a heap of research or character development or world-building. An absolutele heap. And then you should not include seven-eighths of all that hard work. The tip, that top one-eighth, that is all you see of an iceberg in the ocean should be also all you see of your research. However, there is a catch. Most astute readers will work out if you do not actually know that other seven-eighths. They have a âfeelingâ that the writing lacks substance. To continue with the frozen water metaphor, instead of being an ice-berg, itâs just an ice floe travelling free and merry. In fact, Hemingway called it the âTheory of Omission.â He wrote that he believed he could tell the quality of a written piece by looking at the quality of what was omitted from the final work. If a beta reader still gets the story completely without all the stuff you have omitted, then it was not necessary at all. Info-dumps can also slow the narrative down to a snailâs pace, breaking the readerâs enjoyment of a story. Of course, if there is no information, then the reader can be confused. One-eighth; thatâs all you need. Stephen King said that a second draft should be 10% shorter than the first, and a lot of the stuff deleted is the extraneous information that makes a writer feel clever but bores the pants off the reader. You just have to brave enough to cull what is not necessary. Part of the problem is when a writer writes a 3-page character study of each MC and yet only a paragraph fits in. Or they write a 5k word essay on the land they have created, but five paragraphs spread through the book is all that is needed. Writers have done this work and â dagnabbit! â they are going to show the world how clever they are. But remember seven-eighths hidden⌠and the fact readers will know if that unseen seven-eighths is not there. |
| YouTube Channel Suggestions So, Schnujo keeps on coming up with ideas for my columns. Now she wants to know the YouTube people I watch that I find good for my writing. I went through my way too long list of subscribed channels and found 12 that I use either often or occasionally. That is a nice number, so I have included them all here. Now, not all of these are going to be for everyone. Some will find 7 hour long videos too much to deal with; others will find 15 minute lessons dull; still others will find 15 minute bouts of negativity too mentally distracting. But I think there could be something here for everyone. Storied A decent look at not only the history of words, but elements of mythology and how they developed over time. Great for world-building and etymology nerds (and so developing my own languages). RobWords This is all etymology-based, but that also brings up a lot of historical context. Again, world-building and language development. Dominic Noble Compares books to the movie adaptations, looks at books and what can go wrong with them, can be negative and is sarky British, but I find Dom very entertaining. Hello Future Me This is one of the better âhow toâ writing channels out there, especially when it comes to fantasy and science fiction. Making your stories logical is his whole thing. He also does some reviews, but the writing stuff is good. Krimson Rogue He dissects badly written books. Not just saying âthis is badâ but explaining in great detail why books are bad. This is using examples to help writers get out of bad tropes. I thanked him in the acknowledgements of my book Invasive Species because his advice helped me make it a better story. BookFox I do find BookFox a little dry but he knows his stuff. Some strong advice here, especially for writers at the start of their âjourney.â Writer Brandon McNulty A lot of his stuff is focused on movies, but it is very easily transferred across to writing as well. Comparisons of positive and negatives are where he shines. Jesterbell Jesterbell is more an opinion channel, from an actress and independent film-maker about what trends are not working in movies (and railing about popular culture), but this is also transferrable to writing. K.M. Weiland This is more a series of lessons, each following from the other, and so is great for beginners or people with specific issues. I tend to look at the videos where I need some brushing up, but I can see her being very good for those who are struggling. Brandon Sanderson The only well-known, big-selling writer whose channel I think is worth the time. He has a lot of advice and good things to say, and it is easy to get lost in what he talks about. Snarky Jay While mainly a pop culture critique site, her looks at what works and doesnât in movies can easily translate to books. She is also a great cosplayer. Jed Herne This is the newest channel I have found. Primarily about fantasy, he covers some of the same stuff as Hello Future Me, but there are enough differences to make him another channel I think is a great help. His advice also differs from many! So, there we go, a dozen YouTube channels that I do honestly think could be good for writers of all levels and experience! |
| Setting The Time Youâve written a great story set in the years you were a teenager. Youâve used your memory to fill in the gaps and add colour to an era that some readers might not have lived through, or might have been too old to see from that teenaged perspective. Your beta reader has a look and says, âWell, itâs sort of that year.â What? Youâve spent all this time! Whatâs wrong with it? Okay, first, donât rely on your memory! Memories are not infallible. What you think happened in 1992 could well have happened in 1999, and that changes everything. I thought they played Wilson Phillipsâ song âHold Onâ at our year 12 formal and I danced with Mel to it. Well, they couldnât have; it was released 2 years afterwards. So, just check with some research. But donât just rely on research. The book Ready Player One was clearly written by someone who lived in the 1980s, but who was not actively involved in the pop culture. It reads like a series of Wikipedia articles, not like a natural memory of someone who was involved. Itâs all well and good to state certain things because they were popular, but who were they popular with? âIâve Never Been To Meâ was huge in Australia; none of my friends liked it â it was bought by our mothers! It would be like someone in 2040 writing about 2010 and saying Susan Boyle was on every kidsâ mp3 player. She was popular, yes⌠but with older people. The kids were listening to Ke$ha, Katy Perry and Lady Gaga, not an older woman from a singing TV show. In places where hiphop was more popular, they were probably listening to other artists. But Susan Boyle? Mum music. You cannot fake a recent time period! You need to have been there or know someone who was. Now, adding colour is all well and good. Pop culture references, clothing references, political references are all ways you can make the time seem realistic. Make sure you are being area and person specific, though. In Australia, disco was niche; in the 1970s, the kids were listening to pub rock, glam rock, Kiss and AC/DC. In 1981, girls across Australia had their hair cut in the âLady Diâ style; in the US they were doing the Farrah Fawcett big hair thing. In the 1990s, the US was really delving into the urban music scene and post-grunge; in the UK, Europop was taking a firm grip; In Australia, we stuck with last remnants of grunge and discovered local country. Ronald Reagan being president of the USA meant nothing to us in Australia. Having Bob Hawke be our prime minister, a man with a beer-drinking record, did. Now, some things were world-wide turning points. The Berlin Wall coming down in 1989, the Y2k bug fear (and, yes, it was real, they just got on top of it early) in 1999, COVID in 2020 â these are touchstones. Know what wasnât? Woodstock in 1969, the Challenger space shuttle explosion in 1986, the events of September 11, 2001. Why? Because they might have been in the news, and some fallout might have come the way of the rest of the world, but they were localised to the USA. That is something that needs to be remembered â the USA runs the media, but that does not mean the events in that country affect the rest of the world in the same deep, meaningful, cultural manner. This does make it difficult to write to a time period, but it does mean that when you are authentic, it will show through. Or you could simply have a character say, âI never thought 1988 would be like this!â |
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